Primroses, Preservation and Neo-paganism: Queer Connections to the English Countryside

This article examines some elements of queer rural life in England between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. It discusses a selection of queer people who had a profound relationship to the English countryside and considers how they established their personal lives in rural contexts and how far their significant interactions with rural England might be said to be queer. Taken together, their lives and work illustrate three themes that will encourage further debate among historians of the queer rural: the creation of queer home in the countryside; a desire for the preservation of nature, the landscape and rural life; and an ‘alternative’ spiritual connection to nature and the rural.